We've taken the wraps off LG's newest Android flagship, the brand-new G2, and we're already well on the way to getting a full review to your eager eyeballs. But before that drops, we thought you'd like to take a gander at how the G2 compares to an Android flagship from another manufacturer. You know, just for kicks. This time around, the role of The Other will be played by the familiar faces at HTC, whose One smartphone captured our hearts earlier this year with its excellent build quality and rock-solid software. How will the more-than-a-smartphone, not-quite-a-phablet G2 fare against ...

We've already shown you what taking the LG G2 out of its packaging looks like, and we've long since pressed that review unit into service generating the features, comparisons, and full review you've anxiously awaited since we first laid hands on the G2 last month. But it's one thing to unbox a device that's come straight from the manufacturer, and quite another to do the same with its carrier-branded variants. From branding to UI to bloatware to what comes bundled in the box, carriers hold a lot of sway when it comes to customizing their smartphones - and it's rare that we get to see those ...

Yes, we know - we're late on this one. And while we'd love to delve into the details on why it took us nigh-on a week to catch up to the rest of the unboxing squad on this one, suffice it to say that we had a few other things going on last week. Hopefully, you can forgive us. The good news: we're excited as ever to give this Snapdragon 800-powered, 13MP OIS-rocking, 5.2-inch-screen-packing flagship its proper run on the review racetrack. That'll be happening this week and next (along with the usual bevy of features and comparisons), but first we need to take it out of its box. So join us ...

When it comes to smartphones, I'm a pretty shallow guy. It doesn't matter what capabilities are baked into your software, how long your battery life is, or how vast your internal storage; if you're not a good-looking device, you're not coming home with me. So it was with a halfhearted smile and forced enthusiasm that I walked into the LG event in NYC yesterday, responding to a company rep's "are you excited?" with a too-blunt "is there coffee?" It's not that I wasn't looking forward to the show - I was. But the company's newest flagship had already been leaked so thoroughly that we knew ...

We're on the eve of the launch of a most significant (if not spec-packed) smartphone, the Moto X. We're hot on the heels of the industry's latest benchmark-juicing scandal with Samsung's Galaxy S 4 tweaking. We're only a week away from seeing what LG has to offer with its G2 (though we already know what accessories it's launching with). And we're not even a week out from the launch of the Nokia Lumia 1020, but we're already in full-on fretting mode about our favorite Finns. That roster would be enough to fuel two podcast episodes this size, to say nothing of listener mail! But thanks to ...

LG's got a press event coming up in New York on August 7, and unless it's just been messing with us through all of its teases and announcements so far, we're going to witness the debut of the manufacturer's new G2 flagship. While that much feels like a certainty, we still have questions about just how the phone will arrive and ultimately go up for sale. Luckily for us, LG's CFO has been talking to the press, and has revealed some of those details. According to the exec, South Korea will get the G2 in early August – presumably, that could happen immediately following the August 7 event. ...

We love leaks of unreleased hardware, and endlessly delight in poring over any images we get our hands on, looking both for revealing details, as well as any signs that they might be less than legitimate. Often, we find ourselves in some ambiguous middle ground, with a suspicion or two that something may be amiss, but lacking any really stand-out reason to dismiss the find. Well, today we're feeling just a little more strongly about a new "leak" that's going around, and can pretty confidently say that evidence has not arrived depicting the LG G2 in multiple colors. A rainbow-hued ...

LG has been anything but shy with talking about the G2. It was already confirming hardware specs before the handset's name was even official, it strongly implied on invitations for its August 7 launch event that the G2 was the subject at hand, and last week it formally announced it was dropping the Optimus name and this phone would, indeed, arrive as the G2. As we wait for that event, we have a new invite to check out – this time fully embracing the phone's name – along with a new teaser video. Well, it's teasing something all right, but this is one of those videos that's light as can ...

Watch today's Pocketnow Daily as we talk about the AT&T pre-orders for the Nokia Lumia 1020, which we know many of you are expecting. HP is next as all the headlines of their probable Android-based smartphone are sadly not as accurate as the renders we found. The Sony Honami is next as we have more detailed specs of the device. We later talk about the LG G2 and the reasons for those buttons at the back. We end today's show talking about the iPhone 5S manufacturing, and some probable delays in the process. All this and more after the break. Stories: - AT&T opens Nokia Lumia 1020 ...

If we're to believe the teases, we're just about three weeks away from the launch of the LG G2. The phone's been starring in a lot of leaks lately, and we've had quite a few opportunities to check out the handset's hardware – including those unusual rear-mounted controls. Today we get yet another glimpse at the smartphone, giving us a look at those buttons without the phone's rear panel in the way, and suggesting what we can expect from the G2's battery. As you can see, we appear to be looking at a 2540mAh capacity. That's up a solid 20% from the original Optimus G's 2100mAh cell. Once ...

While still state of the art, by this point full HD 1080p displays on smartphones are beginning to lose some of their novelty. After all, we've been seeing them show up on handsets for more than half a year now. Hoping to help keep things fresh, LG just announced a new 1080p panel for phones that the company claims is the thinnest anyone's made to date. LG's panel is a 5.2-inch model, and measures a scant 2.2 millimeters thick. Those of you sensitive to the appearance of the PenTile subpixel arrangement employed on full HD displays like the one Samsung used for the Galaxy S 4 will be happy ...

It's not every day you schedule a podcast the day before one of the biggest Windows Phone announcements in the platform's history - but given our plans to host a special-edition Pocketnow Live event covering Nokia's NYC event tomorrow, we thought it best to get the Weekly out of the way ahead of time. That doesn't mean we don't talk Nokia - indeed, we've got Chief News Editor Stephen Schenck on the air with us this week to discuss what it's been like to follow the story of the EOS/1020/909, probably one of the most widely-leaked devices in smartphone history. We also follow the leaky ...

The LG G2 can't come soon enough, but, until then, all we've got to hang on to are the rumors and leaks. ...like this one, from today, with an image reportedly depicting the LG (Optimus) G2 for Sprint, in all of its glory. You surely have noticed the minimal bezel on the display, which, will hopefully be a 5.2-inch one, with 1080p resolution. It's as close to edge-to-edge as it gets! Another picture, below, seems to confirm what we already know, or have seen leaked: controls on the back, for either volume or zoom. Aside from the 13-megapixel camera, this new report claims that the phone ...

Back in June, we learned that LG was throwing together a little event for itself, scheduled to take place on August 7 in New York City. We speculated a little about what the manufacturer might have to reveal, and based on some earlier comments it had been making on a follow-up to last year's Optimus G, we wondered if we might not see this G2 arrive a bit earlier than the IFA debut that once seemed likely. With less than a month to go now before the event, LG is starting to be just a little less coy about what's on the agenda, and has been dropping some less than subtle hints that it will ...

Rumors about LG's next Android flagship have really been heating up lately, and following last week's leak of a bunch of G2 imagery, revealing those innovative rear volume controls, we just heard a new rumor that the G2 might be the first smartphone with 3GB of RAM. Hot on the tail of that one comes a new series of claims, revisiting that button issue and looking a little at the phone's camera. Now, there are some translation issues that make this rumor a little less than crystal-clear, but Techblog.gr asserts that the G2 will have more than just its volume controls around back, and all of ...

While companies continue to produce phones with impressive specifications, the smartphone market has grown somewhat stale in the last two years. Practically every form factor but the basic candy bar has become extinct. And with the exception of a few pieces of brass trim and varying levels of build quality and size, every phone is virtually cut from the same mold. It's boring, monotonous, and we're all just about ready for the next big thing – no not the Note III or some other cookie-cutter Samsung phone, a legitimate revolutionary change. It's difficult to predict how that change will ...

Watch today's Pocketnow Daily as we talk about the Samsung Galaxy S 4 with LTE-Advanced which was recently announced for the Korean market. We later talk about LG and the recently leaked photos of the Optimus G2. HTC follows with a new 8XT smartphone that borrows some Boom Sound love for Windows Phone, aside from the launch rumors of the HTC One mini. Motorola is next as we have a new logo, new leaks of a phone, and a new series of smartphones that will be called the Droid ULTRA. We end today's show talking Google's launch of their Google Edition HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S 4. All this ...

Watch today's Pocketnow Daily as we talk about the Android Nation stores that Google is helping promote in Asia. HTC is next as rumors have the company working on a Windows Phone variant of the HTC One. LG follows with an event scheduled soon and where we expect the Optimus G2 to be announced. The iPhone 5S follows as we finally have the first leaked photo of the device. We end today's show talking about Sony's hint of a new smart watch coming in their next event. All this and more after the break. Stories: - Google to help expand Android Nation retail stores to India - Could HTC release a ...

We've been looking at signs for months now that LG's follow-up to the Optimus G could arrive running a Snapdragon 800 SoC. Then, when the company announced this week that the G2 would indeed feature one of these new Qualcomm chips, we saw those leaks validated. While LG has started to share information about this handset, it still hasn't formally launched it, nor given us a firm expectation of when to expect it. We've been operating on the assumption that this year's IFA in Berlin might be the right venue, but now news of an early August New York LG event has us wondering if the G2 might ...

The next big smartphone we're expecting from LG – at least the next phone we expect to see LG sell on its own and not as a new Nexus model – is the Optimus G2, the true successor to last year's Optimus G, rather than the new Optimus G Pro, which seems like more of a cousin. For the longest time we've been expecting the G2 to go official at this summer's IFA, though that hasn't stopped some info on the handset from leaking early. We saw an image earlier this month that seemed to be an in-development LG model – could it be the G2? What could be that very same hardware is back again ...

Watch today's Pocketnow Daily as we talk about Windows Phone 8 GDR2 and a a possible release date along with some billboards that show us what the Nokia Lumia 928 is all about. Then we move to HTC as the red HTC One shows itself in the UK, along with the fact that HTC has improved in sales this month when compared to last month. Then we go through the BlackBerry R10 being compared the Q10, just to make your choice for either much easier since the R10 is just ugly. Later we go through the leaks of a mysterious LG phone we assume to be the Optimus G2, and then we talk about the reports that ...

This phone might very well be the LG Optimus G2 or Nexus 5. It might also be something completely different but our logic dictates we could speculate towards the Nexus approach. First there was the Google Nexus 4 made by LG and then there was the LG Optimus G. According to recent rumors Google and LG are working, again, on another Nexus phone made by the South Korean company. Now the Nexus 5, whatever it will be, might refer to a five-inch screen or the fifth Nexus phone. Nothing really solid to hold onto here but we know the Nexus 4 will be due for a refresh around October, considering ...

There's no denying that LG hit a home run with their Optimus G. We really didn't see that phone coming, and we were quite pleased with our experience reviewing it. At first we though that the Optimus G Pro was a continuation to LG's efforts in having additional presence in the Android market, but it seems that they're not done yet as we've now discovered that there is an LG Optimus G2 in the works. The LG Optimus G2 is now appearing in AnTuTu Benchmarks, which we're very fond of, but if just one source isn't credible enough for you, we've also discovered it getting its Bluetooth ...

There is a new top dog over on GLBenchmark (at least for some tests), an LG handset identified as model D801. With all this talk abut the original Optimus G possibly seeing a premature end, we're quite curious to learn about what other hardware LG might have on the horizon, so this very high-end device certainly piqued our interest. Digging a little deeper into the D801's listing, and it appears that this phone could actually be the Optimus G's sequel, the Optimus G2. Sure enough, the handset identifies itself as "g2_tmo_us", so it's apparently in testing over at T-Mobile. The phone ...

Life frequently defies our expectations. For example, if it's your first full season covering mobile-technology trade shows, sometimes you find your expectations for a nice, quiet lull between CES and MWC completely upset -toppled, really- by reality. For this editor, that reality came fast and fierce, delivering an unbelievable bounty of rumor and speculation at his doorstep on the morning of this week's Pocketnow Weekly podcast. The bright side: you get to hear all the latest news and gossip surrounding Galaxy S IV and Note 8.0 speculation; HTC's Droid DNA upgrade with a very James ...